If you are around water pack em tight. Otherwise the only pattern snows have is that there is no pattern. Only thing is don't space them evenly. Group em by family groups with several yards between groups. Snows are like other waterfowl. The fight if another family group gets to close. If one spread doesn't work try something else. No waterfowl have any pattern. I believe in the power of 3 so I put 3 fairly facing different directions unless strong wind and then 10 feet between groups to make easy landing areas. Lay of the field makes a difference too. I asked a paid guide down by Katy Texas one time why we were setting the snows so close. His answer(while we were still talking to each other was) it is easier and faster to pick them up. You don't what to know what I told him about that but it was strike one of me being removed from his setup and being allowed to be a guide for another group of guys. I don't pay $200 per day for a know nothing guide. Watch the live geese and do what they do.

In Fall 1997, I was hunting mallards off a small stream about 8 miles northwest of Hamburg, out on the bottoms. About 9:30, there were lots of migrating waterfowl overhead, so my partner and I packed up our dozen decoys and trudged out into the center of a 400 acre corn stubble and just laid down - about 150 yards apart. No decoys! After about 45 minutes, I decided I was certifiably nuts for this strategy; however, there were thousands of migrators in every direction and soon, I spotted a flock of ~300 S&Bs about a mile northeast, heading south at about 1000'. I thought to myself, "those birds are coming here" ... and with thousands of acres to choose from, that was a crazy thought. But as they cruised to my southeast about a mile, they all of a sudden "balled up" and in a few minutes, we had the "perfect spread" -- 300 live birds - on the ground - just out of range from my hunt partner. As we watched, soon there were a thousand, and 2 thousand and then 3 thousand --- the flock grew larger and closer.

Something spooked them, they flushed, my partner fired off 3 shots and nailed one. Since he had never hunted light geese, this episode was quite a treat ... he was a US Navy pilot out of Jacksonville, FL, and quite impressed by my white goose savvy.

So the lesson here :: keep your money in your wallet; just go find the X and lie down. Go to sleep and maybe they'll just come to you! lol In my case, it will never happen like that ever again.

So I /we chase 'em too and we spread about 1200-1400 sillosocks + 400 full bodies in a "comet-shaped" pattern (denser at the head end ... thinner & less dense at the tail end) in a shape that is about 60 - 80 yards wide and 200+ yards long ... and with 2 or 3 4-arm vortexes and 2 e-callers we do "just OK". In the fall ... it is a different story ... we generally do very well and have a day or two of 100+ birds. In any case, fooling 100s of pairs of eyes is tough and many of these birds have seen Iowa and NW Missouri more than 10 years. They are a tough and careful quarry - not to be taken lightly. If you can find the X, however, they will literally, "commit suicide"! Scouting is probably more of a success factor than spread design. Find the X (there may be several) and that may take driving several hundred miles in a day, an Ipad Mini with google-earth, plus a plat book and a good cell phone. Dedicate somebody to that task alone - if you can. Then the spread does not have to be as large, it can be mobile, and require less manpower. Good luck ... let us know how it goes.

P.S. I have not seen any yet in southwest Fremont county in the Bottoms.

So I /we chase 'em too and we spread about 1200-1400 sillosocks + 400 full bodies in a "comet-shaped" pattern (denser at the head end ... thinner & less dense at the tail end) in a shape that is about 60 - 80 yards wide and 200+ yards long ... and with 2 or 3 4-arm vortexes and 2 e-callers we do "just OK". In the fall ... it is a different story ... we generally do very well and have a day or two of 100+ birds. In any case, fooling 100s of pairs of eyes is tough and many of these birds have seen Iowa and NW Missouri more than 10 years. They are a tough and careful quarry - not to be taken lightly. If you can find the X, however, they will literally, "commit suicide"! Scouting is probably more of a success factor than spread design. Find the X (there may be several) and that may take driving several hundred miles in a day, an Ipad Mini with google-earth, plus a plat book and a good cell phone. Dedicate somebody to that task alone - if you can. Then the spread does not have to be as large, it can be mobile, and require less manpower. Good luck ... let us know how it goes.

P.S. I have not seen any yet in southwest Fremont county in the Bottoms.

Sounds like an impressive spread. I've got disagree some though, you sort of make it sound like finding a big feed makes it a sure thing when that's a long shot from reality. Also, I have to assume your 100+ days in the fall are not coming from IA.

The last time we killed over 100 was before the DNR let Forneys' Lake dry up around 2005. Before that, there were days when 250,000 snows roosted on Forneys and played between Riverton, Desoto, Squaw Creek and Schilling.

Don Rieger at Cooper Creek*, east-southeast of Percival, Iowa, in the 90s, had some huge days - spring & fall - for several years. Ed Foral - just a mile south of the Iowa line and along the Missouri River - has had many days over 100 :: fall and spring before the epic 2011 flood. Both were commercial and had enough guns to get the numbers up there. Just 2 or 3 guns will never get that high.

Given the right conditions, I expect that we could kill 100+ this spring (over cornstalks). We have a couple fields that appear to us humans as "prime", and we'll see when the great white tornadoes glint in the sky. I have seen days when there were a million birds in the skies over Fremont County ... will those days come again -- I have only "hope" ... when there are a million birds on Squaw and the winds and weather are right ... we'll find out. We should have 8 guns some days and IF we can hit anything and IF we can get'em to "finish" ... it could be fun ... beating 2000 eyes is difficult for sure. We get "humbled" every time we think we have them figured out. Guys who are "Healing Warriors" - guys who have been seriously COMBAT wounded in Iraq or Afghanistan (or Vietnam) are welcome to join us ... so are kids, women and certain old men.

We should have about 15 acres of shallow water, but we'll let that alone - as a roost. In past years, it has held ~15,000 birds over night for several days and having that spot makes field hunting more productive for us AND OTHERS.

I do think the best light goose hunting this year in SW Iowa, will be north of Riverton, in the E & W Nish River bottoms - over cornstalks.

Incidentally, back around 2004, a National Geographic photographer, Bill Allard, spent 3 days in our pit. He took hundreds of photos and only 4 made it to the magazine & web site. That was a very good year.

* Cooper Creek used to be private and now, it is DNR Public! Yes, ordinary guys can hunt there without restriction. In recent years, it has been too dry to be very productive, but IF DNR would install at least 2 high capacity wells and keep it at optimum depth, it could be a great place. Here's hoping they'll do that in the next 3 or 4 years.